what he hopes the senate will do with the sequester. today, itwasharryreid's chanceto respond. >> speaker boehner made harsh accusations, i'm not going to repeat them here on the senate floor. he thinks the senate isn't moving quickly enough to avert the sequester. the speak's charge is weak sauce, mr. president. >> weak sauce. joining me now is robert gibbs. former white house press secretary to president obama. weak sauce, what do we say about that? >> i think you can see, we are in the -- if you were landing an airplane, we are in the final decent here. i think there seems to be nothing on the horizon that would overt the cuts. the president is not going to move off of the idea that these cuts should be replaced by a balance of entitlements and spending cuts. i see nothing that would demonstrate that republicans are ready to make those cuts more balanced and talk about revenue in addition to spending cuts. i thought the most interesting and colorful quote wasn't speaker boners, but senator ron johnson from wisconsin who said if speaker boehner were to overt the sequester cu

andharryreidmetlast week, and they emerged from the meeting saying the same line that they're saying publicly to reporters. they said privately. the senate needs to move is john boehner's message sfwloosh the fact is that both sides blaming the other. they all signed on because the sequester was approved as a matter of legislation, but it was, as bob woodward reports in his book, it was a white house proposal to the hill to get past a previous budget crisis. >> one of the most curious lines in washington right now that this is obama's sequester. yes, the president might have proposed it. house republicans pushed it through their chamber, and the senate pushed it through the senate. it's really everybody's responsibility. all hands were on deck in 2011 when they did this. now, both sides have political advantages to stay where they are. the senate needs taxes. house republicans cannot put any tax revenue in this equation because john boehner passed tax increases with the fiscal cliff and cannot afford to do it again politically. it's too difficult for him. >> what about what's happeni

toleadharryreid. look,we've tried 60 ways to sundown and, you know, i don't know what they got going on over at the senate, but i wish they would get together with the president, pass what they think they can pass, and then we would be glad to take a look at it. we've certainly shown -- >> you know as well as i do they're not going to be able to pass anything with 60 votes. they may be able to pass some things with 50, 52, 53 votes. they won't be able to pass anything with 60 votes, and should that be the marker on something like this? is this such an important -- >> for sure. >> -- thing it should take 60? that 41 -- >> no. i'm saying what should be the marker is the senate ought to be able to pass something. look, for better or for worse, the president -- >> so senate republicans need to get involved in this? >> no, what i'm saying is they need to work it out over there. i'm not going to tell the senate how to do their business, but they -- where br they start looking for us to lead them we've passesed two bills. the president passes nothing. the president's party controls the sena